Yesterday, in an Extra Life encore, I finished The Last Guardian. I just want to type those words again.
I finished The Last Guardian.
The Nordic Games Conference is going on right now in Skyrim Sweden. There’s a vibrant Scandinavian developer ecosystem out there, and interesting stuff often comes out of this event, which I imagine to be rife with Viking-related imagery such as mead and hats with horns.
GamesIndustry.biz reports on a fireside chat (possibly in a longhall!) between Massive Entertainment’s Managing Director David Polfeldt and Fumito Ueda, the legendary artiste behind Ico, Shadow of the Colossus and (ZOMG) The Last Guardian.
Among other things, Ueda sort of reveals that he’s working on a new game, which is kind of a surprise. I at least had assumed he’d lost interest in game design, but his remarks seem to indicate the opposite. Which is exciting.
Review by Max “Xtal” Boone Ico (Remastered) Developer Team ICO / Bluepoint Games Publisher Sony Computer Entertainment Released September 27, 2011 Available for PS3 Time Played Completed Verdict: 5/5 Gold Star “My greatest fear of overturning one stone too many– disturbing the memories I had from my original experience– was something not to be realized. Within fifteen minutes I had accepted that I was once again in this beautiful space, and that it would not be for worse.”
You know the problem with perfect things? They’re perfect. And the moment something exceeds expectations, everyone expects more. Shadow of the Colossus was – and is – transcendent; “perfect,” even. Except for one thing. And though that one thing wasn’t enough to seriously tarnish the game, after that encounter it was super hard for me to be objective. I found it difficult to forgive or forget a flaw that would have gone unnoticed in any other game. Because Shadow of the Colossus was perfect, imperfections stand out.
1UP gives us a little more news on The Last Guardian, the third game from Team Ico, along with the 2010 TGS preview and some somewhat odd remarks by Fumito Ueda. Actually only one of his remarks was odd.
There’s a rumor – thanks 1UP – that a PS3-based, high-def collection of famed games Ico and Shadow of the Colossus will appear sometime in 2011, like the recent God of War HD collection. No official announcement has been made, but as 1UP points out, it would make fiscal sense for Team Ico to release an HD bundle of its games just before launching its still-mostly-under-wraps new title, The Last Guardian. Rant follows.
Review by Steerpike Developer Team Ico Publisher Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Released October 18, 2005 Available for PS2 Time Played Finished Verdict: 5/5 Gold Star “I have never played a game like Shadow of the Colossus, because there are no games like it.”